About That Red Team Report…

Michael Gordon's attempt to represent the August 2005 Red Team report as a missed opportunity to shorten the war is wishful thinking and not supported by the realities we were wrestling with in Iraq at that time. 

 The report was one of many Red Team reports chartered by me, and by the U.S. ambassadors and me, to provide us alternative views and to cause the U.S. civilian and military leadership in Iraq to come to grips with the difficult issues confronting the mission. These reports were one of many inputs the ambassador and I used to build our understanding of the environment and to shape our guidance to the U.S. Mission and Multinational Force. We used this particular report to help us shape a December 2005 joint statement of our mission for 2006, and to prepare a joint campaign plan that we issued in April 2006. We also used it as the impetus to implement a joint planning and assessment process that significantly improved our ability to integrate our efforts in 2006 and beyond. The idea that it was "ignored by generals" is not true. I didn't agree with all of it, but I did not ignore it. 

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